How to leave London
 

My husband and I are going to London, staying at the Cranley in South Kensington/Chelsea...we want to rent a car near the Cranley, tour for 2 days and then return the car at Heathrow. Best place to rent?? and how easy is it to return the car to Heathrow??

very easy to return the car at heathrow, but it may help to know where the car places are at heathrow, so why not go out there and pick the car up (only negetive is that it costs more to rent at the airport)....there are restrictions from driving in central london at certain times---you might want to check those out before you rent or to see how it is handled....i'm renting at heathrow in a couple of weeks and the best rate i received was from my airline....

Unless you have driven in London before, I highly recommend you pick the car up at Heathrow. it is outside of the major central London traffic and is convenient to the 3 major south and west motorways (M4, M40, M25).

Just take the Paddington Express to LHR and then a shuttle to the car rental agency.

There is a lot to be said for knowing in advance where you will be dropping yor rental car off.

In Caen this Spring, while I had no trouble finding the train station, locating the rental return was very difficult. I wasn't even sure it was the right place after I left the car.

Keith

We have used AutoEurope for our rentals and have found the rates cheapest and working with them better than any other car rental companies. Many here agree with this assessment.

In Paris and Rome (equally difficult cities to drive in compared to London) we have picked up cars and managed to get out of each city with little difficulty. Not worth it to us to pay the extra charges for airport pickup/drop-off.

If I'm not mistaken there is a hefty surcharge for picking up a car at Heathrow as opposed to "downtown" locations. This is almost always true in Europe. Autoeurope made a mistake on my quote for picking up in Venice at Piazza Roma, making it the airport instead. When I emailed them and they corrected it, the charge dropped by almost $70.

I'm looking at picking up in London at Kensington, Warwick Road for an AutoEurope rental. But I discovered this is an Avis office. It looks to me like a very easy exit from there out of the city (heading west and hitting the major highways quite soon after a straight shot).

I will agree that it can be difficult finding where the car return is at Heathrow, but when you pick one up in London, they will be able to provide you with very detailed directions and probably a detailed map for returning to their Heathrow office.

Incidentally although this UK rental from AutoEurope is an Avis, I got a quote of well over $100 less from AutoEurope than from Avis. I'm looking at a Peugeot 307 for 9 days for $56 a day (and I take the total included insurance for peace of mind). Of course smaller cars are less.

Once more I had a delayed reaction, remembering you said for 2 days. AutoEurope will probably do a 3 day minimum. Once in the UK we rented for just one day from Hertz and got a great deal. This may also be one time when Avis could be lower than AutoEurope.

Thank you for all the advice. Over this past summer we rented a car in France and had no trouble....so it sounds similar in London. Sometimes the left side seems more frightening and easy to confuse.